Homeowners

Today, Watoosa and I closed on the house. We now actually have two residences--an apartment (for the next 16 days) and a house.

We met the sellers last night when we did the final walk-through. They've lived there for 34 years--longer than Watoosa has been alive. It was easy to see how emotionally attached they were to their house. They even camped out on the floor last night to sleep in the house one more time. At one point during closing, I thought the husband was going to call the whole thing off. It lasted only a couple seconds, but those were a tense couple of seconds for us! But they told us that knowing a "nice" couple are moving in would make it easier for them to leave.

It was great seeing the house again. I was wondering if it would lose its luster since we first looked at it, but last night I was reminded all over again how much there is to like about the place. As we finished the walk-through, the carillon in the church behind the house began ringing out hymns. I take that as a good sign.

The house is in great shape, but we do need to redecorate. That will involve stripping wallpaper, painting five rooms (including a stairway), and installing carpet in one room and on the stairs. We are hoping to get it all done by move-in day (4/26). So we tackled the first chore today. I now see why people tell horror stories about removing wallpaper. In most of the rooms, we didn't need to use any chemicals--we just tugged and it popped right off. But in the room that will be the nursery, we had to scrape. And scrape. And scrape. And scrape some more. Thankfully, that part is now done. Next step: sanding the walls to get them ready for painting.

I'm actually looking forward to doing all the work. The physical labor is a nice change of pace from my egghead job, although I've never had a student that was anywhere near as recalcitrant as that wallpaper.